Page 60 of Tempting Mr. Knightly

Lucy worked. She rolled and cut shortbread, answered emails, cleaned the display case and the counter and the espresso machine. She kept her hands moving because when her hands were still, her mind went to Knox, and to the silence where his answers should have been.

She checked her phone at two and again at three. Nothing came either time.

At four she carried the phone to their table by the window and quit checking it. He had asked for one night, and she could give him one night. Dough rose on its own schedule. So did men, apparently.

She pushed the phone across the table.

Marco came back without being called. He didn’t ask. He flipped a chair around at their table by the window, sat, and waited.

“He’s not coming,” Lucy said.

“I gathered.”

“He says he’ll explain tomorrow.”

Marco leaned back. “Do you believe him?”

Lucy stared at the phone, at the messages, at the word promise, used twice. Knox didn’t use that word lightly. Knox didn’t make promises he couldn’t keep.

“Yes,” she said. “I believe him.”

“Then wait.”

“I hate waiting.”

“I know.” Marco stood and picked up the teacup. “You’ve spent all this time proving you don’t need anyone. Waiting is the price of admission. It means you care.”

“I’ve always cared.”

“Not like this.” He touched her shoulder. “Not like this.”

The evening came, and at six Lucy closed up alone. Marco’s shift had ended at three, but he’d stayed until five the way he did when something was wrong and left with the apology he didn’t need to make and a promise to be back at dawn. She locked the door behind her and stood alone in the dark kitchen.

The counter was clean. The ovens were off. The spot where Knox always set his binder was empty.

She walked upstairs to the dark apartment and didn’t turn on the lights. She sat on the couch, the same couch she’d barely touched all week.

Tonight, the door stayed unlocked. She couldn’t bring herself to lock it.

She picked up her phone, opened his contact, and stared at his name.

She didn’t call.

She laid the phone down and watched the streetlight outside lay a pale stripe across the ceiling, the same light that had touched his face last night, the same light that had caught the curve of her shoulder while he traced patterns on her skin.

Tomorrow, he said.

Tomorrow, she would have answers.

Friday night, she had the silence and the waiting and the devastating ache of a woman who had finally let someone in and was now discovering that doors opened both ways.

Chapter 18

KNOX

Knox had been at his desk since six on Friday morning. The city was still dark outside his window, the sky that particular gray of early autumn before the sun committed to anything. He’d barely slept. He’d left her apartment before dawn and come straight to the office, the imprint of her against him still warm under his shirt.

He opened his laptop. After weeks, IT had finally salvaged Request #4471. It had landed overnight; the recovered 2018 Portfolio Restructuring Files sat in his inbox. Somewhere in the waiting he’d let himself believe the silence was its own answer—that a clean conscience was only a corrupted file no one could open, that Golden Lotus had belonged to some other firm’s ledger, some other man’s signature.